Who's That Pokem...SUPERHERO!: Ten Forgotten Superheroes

Seriously, most of you are likely not going to be able to guess this. I tend to like extremely obscure characters. It's a curse.

You know what's annoying? Those shitty top ten lists you'll see crapped out on certain sites where the writer knows next to nothing about the characters and just cherry picks obscure characters that usually aren't very unknown at all. And the truth is, it's hard to come up with a proper list on this subject because occasionally you'll get a writer who decides "hey, let's revive this character because I remember them fondly" and it ends up making these lists superfluous. What I'm gonna do is name off ten characters I remember (and love) that almost never get brought up, talk about what I remember about them a bit, and that's about it. No real ranking here, just ten superheroes that have seemingly been forgotten...until they're not.

Surprisingly, not all that edgy.

Edge

I grew up in that sweet-spot where I got to fully experience the best of the 80s and 90s through the eyes of a child, which made my comics experience interesting. Among the many things I remember from comics as a kid, a storyline called Bloodlines really stuck out. It was about shapeshifting Xenomorph-like aliens attacking people and some of those people surviving only to gain powers. It was a cool idea to introduce a new crop of heroes and villains. Among the most memorable for me though was Tom O'Brien, a poor guy who had to quit school to support his family. He was already the perfect type to end being a hero but the attack left him looking less than heroic. It actually left him an amnesiac who feared he killed people, due to his new appearance (i.e. he's got blades and wire-like protrusions coming out of all of his parts. He helped Steel drive off the alien that created him and kinda faded into obscurity afterwards, which is a shame because he was one of the more compelling characters to come out of the entire event.

Meet the guy that would make Batman's nemesis wet himself.

The Scarecrow/The Straw Man

I could honestly just make this entire list up with old forgotten horror themed heroes, but I'm trying not to play favourites, so here's just one standout example of one. Meet the Scarecrow, a supernatural being that lives in a painting and emerges from it to do his thing. You see, that painting is actually portal to his dimension and this bad boy is actually a Fear Lord, which is exactly what it sounds like. So, why is he a hero? Probably because he tends to like the more fun aspect of fear rather than the whole "killing innocents" part. He's ripped apart cultists, battled off other Fear Lords alongside Doctor Strange, and tends to be one of those characters who is just barely on the periphery, waiting to pop up and dig into some evil. If I worked for Marvel as a writer, I would definitely pitch a book with this dude in it immediately.

Inner monologue or unnecessary exposition? You decide!

The Night Man

Now here's a fun one to get into for all you younger bleeders. You know how people often bitch about Disney chomping up companies? Well, before Marvel was a subsidiary of the House of Mouse, it's a practice they too engaged in. Back when I was a wee bit of bony effeminate white child, there was a company called Malibu Comics and I was really into them. They had their own superhero books, their own licensed books, and even separate imprints. One such imprint became rather huge in the 90s too, known as the Ultraverse. And a character from that range of books was this guy, Johnny Domino. He was young, hip, had beautiful long hair, and he played a saxophone. He was so beautifully 90s it hurt. After an accident he ended up losing the ability to need sleep and gaining the ability to hear evil thoughts. He decided that since he couldn't sleep, was in pretty good shape, and heard these evil thoughts...well, a costumed crime-fighting identity might be a good idea. Honestly, a lot of the Ultraverse books waver between being slightly goofy camp to being really interesting and compelling stuff, even today. Sadly, after marvel bought Malibu they also quietly shuffled off all of these popular characters into limbo. At least DC integrated their acquisitions.

She's mighty mighty.

Brickhouse

You've probably noticed that a lot of these characters are from the 90s, haven't you? Yeah, that's when I really got into comics so it's simply going to happen when writing up a list mostly based on memory like this. Besides, there were a metric ton of new characters introduced back then and most of them did end up left behind in one way or another. One such character is this BBW here, a lady who literally turned into the brick wall she was leaning against during an event called the Big Bang that created the powered people in DC's old imprint, Milestone. The most well known thing to come out of that is the character Static, as he got his own cartoon and all, but for me it was all about the Blood Syndicate. A group of former gang members who all came together to be heroes, it was easily one of my favourite comics during my youth and Brickhouse was a truly memorable part of it. Her transformation caused her a lot of grief, not just physically but also mentally. She had amnesia, suffered from seizures, and had a general poor body image. It meant a lot to me rereading those books over the years as I changed from small boy into giant hairy man. My own poor body image made me feel so much more empathetic to her as a character, ultimately making her one of the ones I love the most. They keep teasing a Milestone revival and I keep waiting, hoping to see those characters again. Come on, DC, Brickhouse and the Blood Syndicate need a proper revival.

Meet the kid who is so obscure that Google kept thinking I meant Black Bolt.

Bolt

Poor Christopher Bradley, you were yet another victim of "let's kill this kid for drama" comics writing, one of the worst tropes in the medium. I'd say it's up there with "let's kill this woman for drama", which is better known as "women in refrigerators" due to a certain infamous example of that. Writers who do shit like this are one thing you should never be when writing superhero comics: wasteful. They care more about shock value than they do organic character growth or building for the future. Thus, this young mutant hero, former New Warrior, and carrier of a comic allegory to AIDs was unceremoniously killed off while dressed as his hero, Maverick, during the rushed ending of the Weapon X comic series. Killed by none other than his own hero, because it added drama and shock value. What it also did was erase potential, which is why I loathe stories that do that very thing with every fiber of my being. It's why you will never hear me singing the praises of Avengers Arena. Other than a really throwaway cameo in a pretty universally hated film, Chris hasn't gotten any sort of spotlight in a really long time. But I remember you, kiddo.

No, he's not a Dick Grayson rip-off. Not entirely, anyway.

Night Mask

For those worried about these things, I want to warn that there are some big spoilers here. Fair warning. So, remember that company I mentioned earlier, Malibu Comics? Well, from my recollection and my very brief bit of research, their flagship title was The Protectors. It was sort of a public domain Avengers type team. It was part of their superhero line prior to the creation of the Ultraverse books. And yes, that line did have a shared universe with crossovers and all that jazz. They're actually solid books, mostly. But for our purposes, we're talking about one member of the team: Richard Reinhart. His father was an old superhero called the Masked Marvel and the idea was that Richard wanted to carry on his legacy, but his dad wasn't keen on that. Regardless, he did and was a pretty good hero...until the fifth issue of the series. You see, they had this enemy who was like Doctor Doom but much less friendly. He was a sadist called Mister Monday and Richard made the mistake of facing him on his own and it was probably one of the most brutal things I saw as a young comic fan then. Monday beat him mostly to death while broadcasting it all live for everyone to see, as the Protectors searched frantically to find their location. Richard's last words were an apology to his father before Mister Monday finished him off. This was actually my introduction to these characters and, even barely knowing him, it was still emotionally devastating to my young self. I really recommend checking out these books. They're still a good read and a lot better than some of the other stuff that was out back then.

Yet another patriotic hero who punches fascists. It's almost like fascism is bad or something.

Agent Liberty

My early comic experiences were mostly more mature stuff like The Savage Sword of Conan and Vampirella, but when I did get into superhero stuff it was mostly DC in the beginning and it was in the years just prior to the Death of Superman arc, so I got to experience what some people refer to to as DC's renaissance period. After the Death of Superman, I picked up this book called The Legacy of Superman that focused on the other defenders of Metropolis trying to keep up the fight in the wake of his death and alongside it I got the next few issues of Justice League America, which followed up the devastation of both Superman's death and the team being ripped apart by Doomsday. One of those issues was about introducing a new potential line-up, which featured a guy called Agent Liberty. I took to him right away, with his Rocketeer-esque pack and his bladed gloves, he dove right into shit that was clearly out of his punching range. I actually bought any book he was in, because I found him cool. I have a thing for these patriotic heroes, especially when they're nothing like the so-called real world patriots who snatch burqas off women like they're somehow heroic for the act. He was a recurring Superman ally over the years, all the way up until they decided to kill him off during New Krypton for...wait for it...shock value! Because that's not a recurring theme of shitty writing or anything that readers despise.

Take note, Kid Rock, as this is what an actual American badass looks like.

American Eagle

I hate Civil War. It was a shit story built on contrived nonsense that literally made zero sense. A team of heroes who have actually faced off against galactic level threats and saved the fucking world, yet somehow it's their fault that a dickhead supervillain blew up a playground. Nope. Bullshit. But the reality was that the story was only there to serve the purpose of introducing a new swath of books, not to actually be profound or well-written. Among those books was a new Thunderbolts series and I kinda hated it too, as it basically wiped its ass on the general idea that made people like the Thunderbolts. But hey, it's Warren Ellis, so yeah. There was just one moment in it though that really spoke to me. See that guy up there? Yeah, he's a fairly obscure character. Native American hero, not featured on any big team, mostly does his own thing. Well, Bullseye ran afoul of him and when the world's greatest assassin came up against this guy...American Eagle paralyzed his ass. Oh yeah, it was such a beautiful breath of fresh air in an otherwise miserable comic series. Look, there's a lot of backstory I could tell about the character but...do I really need to beyond the fact that he kicked Bullseye's ass harder than it has ever been kicked? I guess I could mention he was against the whole stupid Registration Act thing that Civil War was built on and stuck to his guns on that, returning to the Navajo reservation he was from to protect people there without having any of Tony Stark's gestapo hassle him. Why didn't we get an American Eagle comic? They put out a special about him and it was literally one of the best Marvel comics I have ever read. Get your shit together, Marvel. Less Thanos, more American Eagle.

Cir-El is here to remind you that pedophilia isn't just wrong, it will result in being horribly disfigured. And if she's not up for it, I certainly am.

Cir-El

Have you ever wondered to yourself what Superman's daughter might look like? Bam, here you go. Meet Cir-El, Clark's daughter from the future who got stuck in modern time for a while and did lots of superheroing. She's one of maybe two Supergirls who isn't his cousin, but that number might be three because complications involving characters sharing bodies and stuff like that. Comics are weird. But yeah, she was a pretty nifty character who I adored so...of course, it had to end badly for her. Yeah, apparently Braniac made her a carrier for a virus that was gonna make things a living hell in the future. Being a selfless hero herself to the very end, she did what her dad would've done: she let herself be dislodged from time, thus negating her own existence and stopping to future. But hey, somehow she came back for one story where all the different Supergirls worked together.  Oh well, go read what she did appear in, it was mostly fun stuff. I don't have good luck with characters I really like surviving, do I? Someone please protect Gwenpool and Moon Girl, I do not trust Marvel.

Some people just fall apart under pressure.

The Heckler

You know the opening image with Pokemon reference and all? Yeah, here's the guy from that image. Before Deadpool was this huge popular thing, before humour in comics was treated as gauche, and before Keith Giffen stopped really drawing anything, there was this book about a hero who literally fought crime by being an annoying mouthy fourth-wall breaking jokester. It was so much fun. i don't really know what else to tell you beyond this was one of those books that seriously deserved better and the character himself definitely deserves more love. He may not have the healing factor, the swords, the angsty backstory, or the various bromances, but he did supply the wit that the grimdark 90s needed. Giffen tends towards being able to do stories like that really well. Here's hoping that someday he'll come back to his forgotten crimefighter and maybe get a new crop of fans into him. I can hope, can't I?

See? Here I am holding out hope for things to get better. Everything's gonna be aces!

Not gonna lie, this list was a massive pain in the ass to write up, which is partially my fault for not having available scans of The Protectors, but there was also my stomach trying to rend my flesh asunder too, so it was a shitshow on multiple fronts. Ultimately, I just hope that you found the list both entertaining and informative. Maybe some of you will look up these characters for yourselves so as to see what I found so good about them. And hey, if you have any obscure or forgotten heroes you were hoping I might talk about, leave a comment and let me know. You might teach me about someone I'm not familiar with. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go take a long break before I move on to talking about other superheroes. Later days, bleeders!